I keyed my own door / put in a 3 inch divot.
any suggestions on how to smooth this out?

Thanks!!!

 

that looks like it might be shallow enough to be wetsandable...but that is something that needs to be done by a pro.

 

langka? i still haven't tried that other one imago-x mentioned...

it looks too deep to be wetsanded. down to the base coat.

 

keeping an eye on this thread, I have a scratch like that below my passenger side grill :(

 

I just did a paint repair on a 2006 Chili Red the other day. I spent about 4 hours repairing the most severe chip, and about 20 minutes on the rest. You could really tell the difference.

The owner was happy though with the results.

I used Duplicolor Putty to fill the gap first. Sanded it with 2500 or 3000 unigrit paper. Applied more putty until the hole was filled and level to the surrounding paint. A little lower it ok.

Then applied factory touch up using a qtip--dipped straight into touchup bottle. Dabbed it onto area. Let dry, and repeated 2 more times for 3 coats. Then I wetsanded this. Then applied more paint to fill any little holes or imperfections. Sanded this, then applied clear. The factory touch up clear takes forever to dry. The basecoat can dry in 10 minutes and be sanded but the clear, even after an hour is still too soft to sand. So put on a couple coats of clear, make sure it's thoroughly dry, then wetsand this.

Then I used my PC with an Orange Pad and Prima Cut and polished the sanding marks until it was clear and glossy. Then polished with the Orange pad and Swirl and finished off with the White pad and Swirl. Inspected the results, then added Epic to finish it off.

The result was a repair that looked almost perfect EXCEPT it was slightly lighter. The color match wasn't perfect which was unfortunate, because the smooothness, gloss, and everything else was spot on.

As for the quick touchups---those were just qtip dabs on each spot---two coats, and then clear, and very light sanding.

For your key scratch, I'd say some putty, and touchup is the way to go, atleast as far as a professional result repair goes. I think you will still see a line, but it will be faint if done properly.

From the photos, it definitely looks too deep to be wetsanded or polished.

Richard

 

nissan needs to hurry up on their self-repairing paints.

 

OG, what do you do for a color like Lightning Blue, where touch-up is not available??

 

you try not to look at it.

well, dats wat ive been doing on my legacy's 12" key'ed mark from some
trailer trash at meijer... told my wife NEVER go shopping there
again. lol

 

Body shop.

Visit a body shop and see if they will mix up a batch of paint for you. At my shop, we use a local paint store that will match anything we give them. It starts with the VIN number and a call to MINI to find the corresponding paint chip for that VIN number. That's given to the paint shop, they mix it and give it any quantity you desire--down to little touch up bottles.

But the caveat here is---any metallic paint--no matter where it's mixed--isn't going to match the original exactly. It comes down to how the metallic flakes get distributed onto the paint and there is no way to disperse it and match the existing flakes--so there will be a variation, and will never be perfect. The way body shops fix a key scratch is to sand the paint down and respray the entire panel or edge that can be blended with the existing paint. This way, it's not focusing the paint in one area--it's a much larger area. Still this doesn't guarantee a perfect match. A bad painter will cause the paint to be splotchy looking--alternating light and dark splotches seen from different angles.

The point of this, is that no matter what you do, it's not going to be perfect, so you might as well settle for the next best thing.

i.e. Good Enough....from 2 feet away.

 

When you sanded it how did you keep from sanding the rest of the paint around the chip? Or did you not worry about it and let the polish take care of it after?